This Is Your Dare-to-Be-Great Moment

And even though I tend to be an optimist, I remember where my discount brokerage account stood a year ago... so I see my portfolio as half empty.

What does make me feel better is that any new money we put into the market will be buying stocks at these half-empty prices. Not everything is priced as a bargain, but the market panic is certainly presenting us individual opportunities that could once again have our portfolios overflowing.

When you look at lists of the top-ranked American presidents, three consistently rise to the top: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. Why? Because they successfully faced major challenges. The first birthed a fledgling country, the second ensured that the country wasn't torn in half, and the third presided over our biggest financial crisis ever.

Think of the person you admire the most. Dollars to donuts, you admire this person because of how he or she overcomes adversity.

The adage says that the best time to buy is when there's "blood in the streets" -- not when there's "sunshine on your shoulders."

I could go on, but you get the idea. Tough times are the breeding ground of opportunity.

And tough times are what we have. The pop of the housing bubble has caused a credit crunch that the government is flailing to fix. The stock market has been chopped in half. Companies that were perceived as rock-solid are threatening bankruptcy if they don't get a bailout. Of course, the economists and experts who once regaled us with nuggets like "housing prices never fall" are envisioning calamity for the foreseeable future. All of these developments have caused consumer confidence to plummet to historically low levels.

I don't know when we'll get out of this financial crisis. I don't pretend to be able to call the market bottom. But I do know this: The investing legends of this generation will be made now. And they'll have some things in common:

They won't listen to the pundits.

They will buy when others sell (and vice versa).

They will be mocked until they are revered.

They won't be reactionary -- they'll have a plan and principles.

A place to startAs a starting point, let's focus on the first two bullet points. What are the Wall Street pundits shunning right now? As you are probably aware, it's rare for the Streeters to make sell recommendations. "Hold" is Wall Street's polite way of saying "Sell," so I went trolling for companies that have consensus hold ratings but strong fundamentals -- reasonable profit margins, positive expected growth, and good interest coverage.

Whether your goal is as simple as retiring a few years earlier or as far-reaching as becoming an investing legend, this is the time to be carefully daring. Wall Street dislikes these companies, but it takes more than just being contrarian to make an investing legend. You also have to be right, so remember those final two bullet points I mentioned earlier -- planning and principles. In short, it'll take time and research to separate the legend-makers from the retirement-takers.

The Fool's co-founders, Tom and David Gardner, already have their plan and principles in place. They look for companies with strong fundamentals that are poised to manage this economy and continue growing for years to come. In fact, their research has led them to recommend two of the 10 companies above in their Stock Advisor newsletter. You can see their views on these two, as well as all of their other recommendations, for free with a 30-day trial. There's no obligation to subscribe.

Anand Chokkaveluinspires the uninspired (and wonders whether anyone will get the reference he just made). Heowns shares of Chipotle.Procter & Gamble is a Motley Fool Income Investor recommendation. Chipotle is a Motley Fool Hidden Gems and Motley Fool Rule Breakers pick. Biogen Idec and Netflix are Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations. The Fool owns shares of Procter & Gamble and Chipotle and has adisclosure policy.

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In the past few years the stock market was driven by the dot com bubble followed by the housing bubble and excessive consumer spending. With the manufacturing base gone in the United States what do you think will drive profits in the future? The market will recover somewhat, but until an engine to drive growth re-appears it will be slow and probably not get to the old highs. Perhaps green technology will do it. Perhaps another bubble of some kind. But until then it's probably slow sledding.

How far into the future do you have to look, and it Will Not Matter what the rate of Unemployment is or how dire Economic straits are. The Money has been allocated and will be spent. The Economy Will be stronger in 2010, 2011, who knows what happens in 2012 but over the next 30 months, you will look back and kick yourselves.

It's my belief that most people are best served with a majority of their stock portfolio in indexes (I personally prefer ETF's to mutual funds). Vanguard ETF's are my favorite. These should be held on a long-term buy and hold basis.

The stock screen in this article is for those who want to pick individual stocks -- even as just the non-index portion of their stock allocation.

Index funds in a down market? You're better off parking your cash in a HYMM account. At least you"won't " lose your money. Every index fund on the planet is too far down to see and when the market kicks back into gear you'll be left in the dirt, (holding a slow index funds and crying out how you missed your opportunity). Baaaad advice.

I second the comment about Reagan. FDR is in my list of WORST presidents. What did he give us?

Let's see: out of control federal spending, a bankrupt social security program, welfare, and militant labor unions. And of course his foreign policy - of non-involvement and pacification -which almost made the US lose WW2 and certainly caused the deaths of millions of innocent people under the Nazis and Japanese.